We Demand Justice 2

Whatever the legal nicities, Premierbet/IGH were in debt to their customers. Any gambling company picking over the corpse should firstly and foremostly satisfy owed punters. If Premierbet had things of value, such as its Orbis technology, we demand that a fair market price be given to its customers in lieu of their balances for them. Jennings should not hide behind the 1845 Gambling Act, it should honour the debts owed to punters.

This whole fiasco doesn't start and end at Jennings' takeover. The wider industry should get its house in order if it wants to quell punter demands for ever more stringent regulation. One of the industry's claims in the run up to the Gambling Commission being established was that it wasn't necessary as the industry was well regulated. It's time for those making that claim to stop talking and demonstrate that it is so. The oldest established bookmaker has gone to the wall and yet its good name was seen as little more than an opportunity to claim that one company was in fact two when it came to clearing up the mess. Premierbet punters were betting with a UK licenced, IBAS registered bookmaker. That was supposed to be the only regulation necessary.......yeah right.

We demand that the bookmaking industry puts its house in order and ensures Premierbet punters' balaces are honoured. If it fails to do so, we demand that the Gambling Commission puts in more stringent regulation, such as spots checks on bookmakers' accounts to see that they are trading solvent or even a central ringfenced account for all gambling companies where individual operators have to front up the money for all the potential betting liabilities that they hold.

We also ask that the Gambling Commission how it feels it is meeting its three pledges in this case. In particular how are Jennings conducting their business fairly when they are discriminating between the more vulnerable customers on IGH's databse (the subset of net losers) and the less vulnerable?